The increasing demands for materiel and forces for North Africa, the
agreements to execute HUSKY and to bring Turkey into the coalition, and
British feelers to undertake operations in the eastern Mediterranean
were interpreted by the Army planning staff as reinforcing the trend
toward "encirclement," "periphery-pecking," and "scatterization" begun
in July 1942 with the decision to undertake TORCH.1
More remote than
ever appeared the possibility of concentrating strong forces in the
United Kingdom to strike a decisive blow across the Channel. For reasons
of state or personal predilections, the President might still prefer to
postpone a final decision on the cross-Channel versus Mediterranean
approaches. With evident pride in his flair for strategy, he could
hardly repress a triumphant note in declaring to his Army Chief of Staff
in early March:

Just between ourselves, if I had not considered the European and African
fields of action in their broadest geographic sense, you and I know we
would not be in North
Africa today--in fact"we would not have landed either in Africa or in
Europe!
2

The President's military advisers were not blind to the obvious
advantages of securing a firm hold in the Mediterranean, but General
Marshall and the Army planning staff, earnest believers in the principle
of concentration and vitally concerned with the day-to-day problems of
mobilizing and deploying troops to fight a global war, could not but
wonder when and where dispersion would end. If political considerations
had led the President to take an active hand in military strategy,
possible political effects of the resultant military moves now began to
force themselves upon the attention of the Chiefs of Staff. At the close
of March General Marshall, in discussing with the President the importance
of BOLERO, for the first time raised with the President the question of
likely repercussions on the political equilibrium in Europe at the close
of the war should the hoped-for concentrated Anglo-American drive against
Germany from the west not keep pace with the Soviet advance against
Germany from the east. General Marshall ventured to suggest:

. . . if we were involved at the last in Western France and the Russian
Army was approaching German soil, there would be a

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most unfortunate diplomatic situation immediately involved with the
possibility of a chaotic condition quickly following.3

The new developments in the struggle against Germany demanded a
rethinking by the military planners of ways and means of securing basic
strategic objectives and resolving the strategic dilemmas that followed
TORCH. The basic question for them was how to deal with current
exigencies of the multi-front coalition war and still return to the
principle of concentration for a major cross-Channel operation. What
was to be the form of the over-all pattern in the war against Germany
and what were to be the relationships between the parts? The staff
planners began in the spring of 1943 to define the choices.

In searching for answers, the Army strategic planners began to advance
beyond the exploratory probing of specific alternative operations in
the largely "compartmented process of reasoning" that had characterized
their strategic thinking before Casablanca.4
The need to put over-all
U.S. military planning on a firmer basis led General Wedemeyer, the Army
planner, to sound what was to be a keynote of Army strategic thinking in
the later war years. At the close of April, pointing to the opportunism
that had hitherto characterized British-American strategic planning, he stressed the need for "the adoption of a
long-range concept for the defeat of the European Axis."
5
Only upon the
firm establishment of such a concept, he maintained, could long-range
logistical planning be initiated. In the same spirit, Col. Claude B. Ferenbaugh, head of the Operations Division's European Theater Section,
emphasized the effects of the "lack of a definite and consistent
long-range strategic concept of operations in the European Theater." Its
absence, he declared, prevented the formulation of "a sound plan both as
regards troop basis and the types of equipment necessary for operations
in the European or adjacent areas."6
However premature the BOLERO-ROUNDUP
planning had proved to be in 1942, Army planners were convinced that
such long-range planning was now all the more necessary. In this way,
permutations and combinations might possibly be held within the limits
necessary to prepare for a decisive cross Channel operation.

The precise formulation of the long-range concept and definition of the
relationships between its parts proved to be a difficult and
long-drawn-out process in 1943-44, subject to involved negotiation,
debate, compromise, and agreement on British and American staff levels
and, eventually, on the highest British-American and Soviet political
levels. In the spring of 1943 the Army planners began to make some
progress toward a clarification of their thinking on two fun-

[69]

damental aspects of this problem-the role of airpower and the possible
limits to the Mediterranean advance.

To define more precisely the role of airpower as a strategic weapon in
the war against the European Axis became all the more important to
General Marshall and his planning staff in the months following
Casablanca when ground operations across the Channel appeared less and
less probable for 1943. Along with the Air Forces leaders, they sought
to clarify their views on the Combined Bomber Offensive, one object of
which, as approved at Casablanca, was to create conditions on the
Continent favorable for a cross-Channel landing.

In the early months of 1943 the Army planners continued to argue against
the more extreme "victory through air power" school of thought as they
had at the close of 1942. In their opinion, the broad strategy of
defeating Germany first could be effected only by directing the heaviest
possible air attack against Germany in the shortest possible time, thus
paving the way for a mighty ground attack to complete the task. U.S.
ground forces would have to be mobilized and trained to deliver their
maximum impact in Europe as soon as possible, "since there is no
reasonable assurance that victory can be achieved by air power alone."7

General Handy expressed his views on
the matter in March 1943. He agreed with the Air Forces argument that
the only possibility for decisive results against the European Axis in
the foreseeable future was by sustained mass bombing attacks, but only
if mass bombings were followed by a co-ordinated land and air offensive.
In his opinion the lessons of the war to date had indicated that air
superiority and, above all, co-ordination between land and air forces,
were the "keynote to decisive victories." Neither the German victories,
the British victory at El Alamein, nor the current advance of the
Russians had been accomplished by sustained mass bombing attacks. On the
other hand, Germany's intensive air offensive against Great Britain in
1940, without a follow-up by ground forces, had not brought the Germans
a victory. Thus far, he observed, the shortage of shipping had precluded
the concentration of Allied land power in any decisive area. Ground
forces had been dispersed throughout the world to hold essential sea and
air bases until such time as shipping would permit a concentration of
land power at the "decisive point." He called for the maximum
application of airpower against the industry and resources of Germany,
as provided in the Casablanca agreement on the Combined Bomber
Offensive. In short, General Handy argued for the application of the
principle of concentration of forces to the new strategic weapon, air
bombardment. In accord with the current trend of thinking among the Army
planners and in the AAF, he recognized the value of a bombing offensive
from North Africa as well as one from the United Kingdom. At the same
time, also in agreement with the chief of the AAF, he was opposed to
dispatching heavy bomb-

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ers to the USSR since that would result in too great a dispersion of the
Allied air effort and a weakening of the Combined Bomber Offensive.8

On 30 April General Marshall took up the proposals General Faker of the
Eighth Air Force had presented to the JCS the previous day to carry out
the Combined Bomber Offensive from the United Kingdom. According to Eaker's plan, the bomber offensive would be divided into four phases
aimed at the progressive destruction of the German economic system and
military strength and paving the way for the eventual invasion of the
Continent. Each phase would be marked by an increase in the size of the
U.S. bombing force. The fourth and last phase preceding the land
invasion would be reached early in 1944.9General Marshall informed
General Henry H. Arnold, Chief of the AAF, that he had no doubt "as to
the over-all importance of heavy bomber operations out of the United
Kingdom, the more so as the likelihood of cross-Channel ground
operations appears less probable in 1943"10. But he saw possible
complications in allocating aircraft to carry out the Eaker plan for an
all-out bombing effort. Thus far the U.S. military leaders had been
unable to concentrate forces in the United Kingdom. If as a result of
post-HUSKY operations a vacuum were created in the Mediterranean, timely
concentration of ground forces in the United Kingdom for an invasion
attempt
would be precluded, and the war would probably be prolonged
indefinitely. In this connection, the current estimate by General
Wedemeyer that a major cross-Channel operation would not be possible
until late 1944 had to be considered. There was also the need for
increasing air strength in the Pacific-Far East area. Under these
circumstances the Chief of Staff called for further study of the Eaker
proposals, particularly of the allocation of bombing strength to the
United Kingdom for the fourth phase.

General Arnold concurred with General Wedemeyer's estimate on a
cross-Channel operation. He took the position that the final
determination of the allotment for the fourth phase of Faker's plan need
not be made immediately by the JCS. But he did call upon the JCS to
stand firm against any further diversion from the bombing effort
against German industrial targets from the United Kingdom. In his view
there was no more important task currently facing the JCS than to give
complete support to Generals Andrews and Faker in the United Kingdom.11The Joint Staff Planners in early May agreed with the estimates
contained in the Eaker plan- that 1,746 heavy bombers would be necessary
by the close of 1943 to carry out the third phase, and that by 31 March
1944, the end of the fourth phase, 2,702 heavy bombers would be
required. It was their conclusion that the AAF could complete the
proposed program and still meet all current and planned commitments to
other theaters. On 4 May the JCS decided to go ahead with Faker's
plan.12

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Thus, before the British and American leaders and their staffs
assembled once more in conference, General Marshall and his staff had
advanced considerably in their thinking about the Combined Bomber
Offensive outlined at Casablanca. That conference had inseparably
linked the offensive to an as yet undefined major cross-Channel
operation. The Air Forces was now ready with a concrete bombing program
leading up to such an operation in 1944. The JCS had approved the
program. The Army planners were prepared to back it up. So far as U.S.
staff thinking was concerned, the place of airpower, at least, in the
shifting strategic pattern of war against Germany, was becoming clear.

The problem of limiting the Mediterranean advance was more difficult.
One proposal, which particularly appealed to the Washington staff in the
first half of 1943, had been suggested at Casablanca -the possibility of
advancing the date for launching HUSKY. Back of the War Department
interest in this proposal lay the hope of putting a quicker end to the
Allied drive in the Mediterranean. Generals Marshall and Wedemeyer both
urged, in the early spring, a bolder strategic move against Sicily than
that envisaged at Casablanca.13They called for a Sicilian operation to
be launched before the Axis forces were expelled from Africa. Such a
move might hasten the destruction of the Axis troops in Tunisia as well
as speed the occupation of Sicily. The proposal for a modified HUSKY was
studied at Marshall's urging in the War Department and in the joint
staff.14
At the same time, the Chief of Staff tried to impress the British Chiefs
of Staff and General Eisenhower with its advantages.15

Practical difficulties in the way of launching HUSKY before to July
1943, then the tentative date for which the operation was scheduled,
were anticipated by the British, General Eisenhower's and even General
Marshall's own

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planning staffs. 16Various objections were raised-the necessities of
training, the shortage of landing craft, logistical limitations in the
theater, risks in moving combat-loaded divisions through the
Sardinia-Sicily-Tunisia triangle, the reduction in the number of total
assault forces below the minimum number set by the commander (seven
infantry divisions), and lack of adequate naval cover. On 30 April,
General Marshall informed General Eisenhower that he recognized such
obstacles and acknowledged that the situation in the theater and the
timing might not be propitious. Nevertheless, he cautioned against the
conservatism he felt General Eisenhower's planners, as well as his own,
were showing. The element of surprise and shortening of time afforded
the enemy to strengthen the defenses of Sicily might justify the command
decision to accept the calculated risks in a modified HUSKY. The
conclusions of General Eisenhower's planners, Marshall warned, did not
reveal "any degree of boldness and daring which have won great victories
for , Nelson and Grant and Lee."17

In the end, nothing came of the Chief of Staff's proposal. The strong
objections raised in various quarters as well as the windup in Tunisia
precluded the acceptance of the bold turning and accelerating move. On
12 May the JCS approved General Eisenhower's suggested plan for HUSKY, including his
recommendations that Pantelleria be captured-to provide fighter
cover-just before mounting HUSKY, and that an ad hoc HUSKY be rejected
as impracticable. 18On the following day-the same date that Axis
resistance came to an end in Tunisia-the CCS accepted the plan evolved
by General Eisenhower's staff. 19

Since proposed short cuts for advancing the date of HUSKY were
fruitless, limits to the Mediterranean advance had to be defined in
connection with post-HUSKY operations. In the early months of 1943 the
Washington Army staff, busy as it was with the windup in North Africa
and with preparations for HUSKY, gave serious study to the problem of
operations in the Mediterranean after Sicily, a problem that would
almost certainly be raised at the next conference with the British. The
advantages and disadvantages of alternative operations were considered.
Southern France, Sardinia and Corsica, the Iberian Peninsula, Crete and
the Dodecanese Islands, the Balkans, and Italy were all mentioned as
possible objectives. The Army planners were by no means in complete
agreement among themselves on the feasibility or advisability of
stopping the Mediterranean advance entirely after the Sicilian
campaign.20 Besides, past experience had made it all too clear that
pressure

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from the British, coupled with political considerations might require
further Mediterranean action. The staff was intent on finding ways and
means of holding any such advance within the bounds of its major
objectives.

In the process, certain lines of reasoning, which were to characterize
the staff's strategic thinking in 1943 and well into 1944, became
apparent. Just as General Wedemeyer at Casablanca had advocated
restricting any Mediterranean operation after TORCH as far as possible
to the forces already in the theater, so the Army planners now urged
similar limitations on any post-HUSKY Mediterranean operation that
might be undertaken. They stressed the western Mediterranean as the most
favorable area for subsequent Mediterranean operations - considering in
general, an operation against southern Italy as the most advantageous.
Such an operation, they suggested, offered the advantages of diverting
German forces from the Soviet front, completing the collapse of Italy,
and obtaining air bases from which to attack vital targets in the
Balkans.21At the same time, the Army planners also presented the
advantages of reducing Mediterranean commitments after HUSKY to a
minimum and transferring the excess forces from the Mediterranean to
the United Kingdom.22If a sizable number of veteran divisions were
transferred before the end of 1943, a
major cross-Channel operation might be undertaken, they argued, in the
spring of 1944.

Complicating a more precise definition of the Army planners' position on
the Mediterranean at this point were highly significant unknowns- the
outcome of the Combined Bomber Offensive and of the Russo-German
conflict.23In any case they were agreed that only by an eventual
concentration of forces in the United Kingdom for cross-Channel
operations could the "unremunerative scatterization" and
"periphery-pecking" trend initiated with the decision for TORCH in July
1942 be stopped.24

Similar views on post-HUSKY Mediterranean operations began to take hold
on the joint staff level shortly before the Americans met again with the
British in conference. In early May 1943 the newly created working body
of joint planners, the joint War Plans Committee (JWPC), recommended
that serious consideration be given by the U.S. Chiefs of Staff to the
movement of seasoned troops from the Mediterranean to the United
Kingdom in the last quarter of 1943. If any Mediterranean operations
were initiated after HUSKY, they should be limited to forces already in
the area and centered in the western or central Mediterranean rather
than in the eastern Mediterranean. These views were approved by the

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JCS on 8 May 1943, a few days before the TRIDENT Conference in
Washington began.25

The dilemma confronting the Army in the spring of 1943 in adjusting its
own strategic faith to the changing requirements of coalition warfare
was strikingly illustrated in an exchange of views between General
Marshall and General Eisenhower. General Eisenhower, who had been one
of the original architects of BOLERO-ROUNDUP planning, believed that it
would be impossible to conduct a full BOLERO for a large-scale ROUNDUP
while continuing Mediterranean operations:

I personally have never wavered in my belief that the ROUNDUP conception
is a correct one, but the time and assets required for building up a
successful operation in that direction are such that we could not
possibly undertake it while attempting, simultaneously, to keep the
forces now in or coming into this theater [North Africa] operating
usefully.26

In Eisenhower's opinion, original estimates for the strength of the
cross-Channel assault had been too low. The coastal defenses of western
Europe were too strong to be penetrated except with overwhelming
resources and strength, and large reserves would have to be assembled to
exploit the breakthrough. On the other hand, a number of Mediterranean
possibilities after HUSKY might be feasible. General Eisenhower asked
for the Chief of Staff's thoughts on the strategic course of action
subsequent to
HUSKY for the Allied forces under his control in the Mediterranean.

General Marshall's response (on 27 April) was that, pending a decision
on the highest levels, the U.S. military staff would have to prepare for
several possible lines of action. He therefore urged General Eisenhower
to make plans for various alternative post-HUSKY Mediterranean
operations-including Sardinia and/or Corsica, and the heel of the
Italian boot. The question of an "all-out" invasion of Italy would have
to be most carefully considered. In Marshall's opinion, that venture
would inevitably have serious repercussions on the Allied shipping
situation and in all likelihood would create the much feared suction
effect in the Mediterranean. Another possibility was the eastward shift
of British-American effort toward Crete and the Dodecanese with the
object of bringing Turkey into the war. At the same time General
Eisenhower would also have to be prepared to transfer a large part of
his forces to the United Kingdom. While urging the need for advance
planning for further Mediterranean undertakings, Marshall declared
emphatically that such operations "are not in keeping with my ideas of
what our strategy should be. The decisive effort must be made against
the continent from the United Kingdom sooner or later."27

Thus, in the early months of 1943 the

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U.S. staff witnessed with considerable misgivings the increasing drain
of Allied resources and strength toward the Mediterranean. The
difficulties of halting the apparently ineluctable trend appeared great
but, if European strategy were to be fixed in terms of a major
cross-Channel operation, the necessity for limiting it became all the
more apparent. Already, as a result of shipping limitations, the Army
planners were compelled to conclude that for 1943 even the relatively
modest build-up for modified cross-Channel operations envisaged at
Casablanca would not be possible. 28

Some progress was made in the months immediately following Casablanca in
clarifying U.S. staff thinking on the role of airpower and on a general
approach toward restricting Mediterranean operations. Still lacking was
an over-all long-range concept for defeating Germany that would
incorporate the principle of concentration in the United Kingdom for a
major cross-Channel attack. The possibility of merging cross-Channel,
Combined Bomber Offensive, and Mediterranean operations into a new
strategic pattern was being studied on the Army
and joint staff planning levels.29
But only the barest outline of a possible synthesis among the three
strands was yet visible to the U.S. staff.30

Time and costs of waging the global war remained uppermost in the U.S.
staff's thinking. In the interim period of early 1943, with Allied
strategy against Germany still in flux, a fear of a prolonged conflict
and a resultant stalemate in the European war began to haunt the U.S.
staff. At the same time, strong added pressure for developing an
acceptable formula for keeping the Mediterranean issue under control and
for defeating Germany decisively and quickly on the Continent was also
building up because of the equally significant and continuing demands
for American resources and strength for the Pacific. The Army planning
staff warned the-JCS to take a firm stand against the continued pouring
of U.S. resources into the Mediterranean after HUSKY, lest the time and
cost of defeating Japan become almost prohibitive.31